20cms

[idun]

1300 railways stations in France are too narrow for the new trains that the TER have ordered. The new trains don't fit! being 20cms wider than the old ones.

Apparently one in six stations are going to be affected. The RFF are going to have to pay for these older stations to be widened, however, but what will that mean for passengers. Stations closed during the work, bus'ing people?

Isn't it all very clever these days, one hears about 'risk assessment' and such things, but what happened to common sense and someone simply getting an old fashioned tape measure out?

This isn't just France, this utter nonsense, it happens all over the place and annoys me to death.

https://fr.news.yahoo.com/sncf-command%C3%A9-pr%C3%A8s-2-000-rames-ter-larges-153719258.html

[Quillan]

I wouldn't mind the job, 2k per platform will do nicely. Out with the old petrol angle grinder and a new disc, days work per platform. Easiest 2k you will ever earn.

[AnOther]

I wonder if they were the same engineers responsible for this embarrassing $125m c.ock up !

[url]http://articles.latimes.com/1999/oct/01/news/mn-17288[/url]

[PaulT]

Dare say some report is saying that the stations are 20cm too narrow and not the trains are 20cm too wide so nothing wrong by the train designers.

[AnOther]

It's true it's nobody's fault that some stations built decades ago to cater for the trains of the time are a shade too narrow for the upcoming generation.

[Chancer]

Well it appears that 5 out of 6 quai's are the new larger dimension, as they are still building the new trains I must assume that there is still some old Rolling stock in use, tsurely his must represent a danger to passengers when a narrow train arrives at the majority of wider quai's?

As a complete aside I picked someone up at the gare TGV haute picardie yesterday and noticed something that I am suer was not there before, there are 4 lines running through, only the outside ones have platforms, we will call them north and South, the central pair now are seperated from the others by huge full height fences because the majority fo trains are through TGVs which dont stop and hurtle through at 125mph.

I am sure that these fences werent there before which must have made it really dangerous if people decided to save time by running across instead of using the slow ramps and elevators.

[woolybanana]

Most people would be only to happy to have 20cms around them!

[YCCMB]

On our train line, after many months of adjustment (for length, rather than width....which only means making some platforms longer) we now have the chance to alight from our train at our local station without first having to walk up to the front 4 coaches. We now have 10-coach trains.

So what? Well, when we had eight coach trains, you couldn't get off at our station after coach 4 because the door locking mechanism controls 4 coaches, and even tough our platform was nearly long enough, the last coach wouldn't fit so all of the last 4 coaches had to stay closed.

The new trains have independently-opening doors, so even though our platform hasn't been extended, we now have the luxury being able to stay in an extra 3 coaches. The back 3 still don't fit.....

[Gardian]

[quote user="idun"]1300 railways stations in France are too narrow for the new trains that the TER have ordered. The new trains don't fit! being 20cms wider than the old ones.

Apparently one in six stations are going to be affected. The RFF are going to have to pay for these older stations to be widened, however, but what will that mean for passengers. Stations closed during the work, bus'ing people?

Isn't it all very clever these days, one hears about 'risk assessment' and such things, but what happened to common sense and someone simply getting an old fashioned tape measure out?

This isn't just France, this utter nonsense, it happens all over the place and annoys me to death.


[/quote]

A couple of things on this.

First, the figure is 1-2 cms, not 20cms.

Second, worldwide suppliers such as Alstom, Bombardier and Hitachi build a 'standard' product, within which there's scope for some variation (propulsion, internal layout, number of carriages) but little on basic dimensions. The re-tooling costs would be enormous. I don't know for sure, but strongly suspect that SNCF made a conscious decision to take an on-cost of 1%-ish for the mods to the stations, many of which probably needed a bit of tlc anyway.

This smells like a non-story to me and I really rather doubt the shock horror manner in which its being depicted. 

[YCCMB]

[quote user="Gardian"]

Second, worldwide suppliers such as Alstom, Bombardier and Hitachi build a 'standard' product, within which there's scope for some variation (propulsion, internal layout, number of carriages) but little on basic dimensions. The re-tooling costs would be enormous. I don't know for sure, but strongly suspect that SNCF made a conscious decision to take an on-cost of 1%-ish for the mods to the stations, many of which probably needed a bit of tlc anyway.

[/quote]

Which begs the question: have Alstom et al. been building trains this width since they first equipped their manufacturing facilities? And, if so, how old are a) the stations in question and b) the current rolling stock, if all of a sudden the trains are too wide?

ETA: Don't worry, I've found out. The trains are, apparently, "plus larges que leurs predecesseurs..." Indicating that the manufacturers clearly make (or used to make) 'em in other sizes. The platforms, OTOH, were constructed " à une époque où il n’existait pas de norme, et l’écartement

entre deux quais ou entre le quai et la voie n’est pas le même dans les

différentes gares de France".

That last bit shouldn't be a complete surprise to anyone who has read of, or witnessed, the total lack of cohesion between groups of fonctionnaires from one town to the next all over France.

[PaulT]

Gardian, you are not insinuating that the media sensationalise news are you? If so then perhaps it was a single decker bus and not a double decker bus as reported that was found on the Moon

[Quillan]

I seem to remember that there are at least two bridges built across the M1 that go nowhere. Somebody got the position wrong on the map, built the bridges before they excavated under them for the motorway only to discover that the motorway passed several hund metres to the side of them. If you know where to look they are still there in the middle of fields doing nothing.

[Chancer]

Great story Quillan, you need to add "intended to be" or something to make the first sentence correct.

So its only 2cm not 20cm!!!!

I bet most of the platforms dont even need modifying, if they were built without normes or tolérances then they probably need to measure them all before knowing.

[Quillan]

[quote user="Chancer"]

Great story Quillan, you need to add "intended to be" or something to make the first sentence correct.

So its only 2cm not 20cm!!!!

I bet most of the platforms dont even need modifying, if they were built without normes or tolérances then they probably need to measure them all before knowing.

[/quote]

Point taken.

See your mixing French and English again. [;-)]

[idun]

I was simply quoting France 2 Journal de 20h news who kept mentioning 20cms and not 2.

And everyone is agreed that 1 in 6 stations are too narrow. In my old area, IF there is ever any work at the local stations, then it causes no end of disruption, especially as locals often use the train to commute to larger towns.

[Chancer]

[quote user="Quillan"][quote user="Chancer"]

Great story Quillan, you need to add "intended to be" or something to make the first sentence correct.

So its only 2cm not 20cm!!!!

I bet most of the platforms dont even need modifying, if they were built without normes or tolérances then they probably need to measure them all before knowing.

[/quote]

Point taken.

See your mixing French and English again. [;-)]

[/quote]

 

Not my fault sir, honest! the dog ate it [:D]

Well an excuse almost as lame, spellcheck function has appeared on my forum postings, I leave it set to French as thats where I need the most help, I ignore the squiggly red lines Under most of this English text and just look at them when I am using a French word (my franglais).

Heres the problem, it sometimes auto-corrects and adds an accent like you picked out, not that I am immune from doing so myself and more annoyingly often randomly capitalises the first letter just like Under in the paragraph above and now here [:'(]

Having a very narrow field of vision and monoscopic vision I cant see it changing the words behind the ones I type, reading tha passage back through is difficult because of all the squiggly red lines.

Now I want to keep the spellcheck enabled as most of my e_mails I now send in French but its driving me mad on the forums especially the capital letters, anyone have any ideas what to do?

Just a test, tolérances Under, still doing it [:@]

[idun]

Alors! BBC news now showing that the new trains are 20cms too wide. And it is not going to be a quick or easy job to sort some of the stations out, they are talking about years and not a quick job in a day!

Now France2 and the BBC may be wrong, but frankly I was only the messenger.

[SC]

If it's really 20cms, will they be able to pass each other safely at speed?

[Quillan]

[quote user="idun"]Alors! BBC news now showing that the new trains are 20cms too wide. And it is not going to be a quick or easy job to sort some of the stations out, they are talking about years and not a quick job in a day!

Now France2 and the BBC may be wrong, but frankly I was only the messenger.

[/quote]

Oh I don't know Idn. I sometimes drove a Transit van round London. Kept going up the kerb with the back wheels going round corners. The cure I found was to keep a massive angle grinder in the back and take 10 or so inches off the worse ones. Can't see no difference with the platforms. Draw a line 20cm in then run the angle grinder down the edge no problem. [;-)]

[mint]

It's now been on the news that 1500 stations will be affected and that it will cost 50 million euros to sort that little error out[6]

Brace yourselves now for next year's tax demand where there will be a special box to tick for "maintaining France's railway system".......shall we say 5% on top?[I]

[mint]

It's now been on the news that 1500 stations will be affected and that it will cost 50 million euros to sort that little error out[6]

Brace yourselves now for next year's tax demand where there will be a special box to tick for "maintaining France's railway system".......shall we say 5% on top?[I]